A River Of Memories
by xfirefly9x
Summary: River Tam ficlets.
1. Twin Terror

**Twin Terror**

Prompt: #57 Nightmare

Blue Sun. It was everywhere, on every planet. It was as if the universe revolved around it. There was something sinister about it and River didn't like it. She knew what it was; yet she didn't know what it was, all at the same time. Blue Sun was her worst nightmare.

"Two by two. Hands of blue. Two by two. Hands of blue." River rocked back and forwards, chanting the words that haunted her thoughts. The nightmares came even when she was awake. _They_ came.

Eyes snapping open, River let out a silent scream that fell short on her lips.


	2. Ducks

**Ducks**

Prompt: #002 Bread

"River honey?" Inara called, as she strolled the ship in search of the girl. She had somehow managed to slip away while the Companion had been hunting for something in her dresser.

Reaching the cargo bay, Inara's heart leapt in her chest when she saw the open door. She raced forwards to check for River, when someone came up behind her.

"River! Where've you been?" Inara asked, relieved.

The girl smiled and showed her a bag of bread. "Going to feed the ducks," she grinned, cocking her head to the side. "Little soul, big world. Eat and sleep and eat…"


	3. Soon

**Soon**

Prompt: #001 Toast

"You're toast!" Wash roared menacingly. He crashed the miniature tyrannosaurus rex into a stegosaurus, his brow furrowed in concentration. There was a solid 'thunk' as the dinosaurs collided, followed by a groan as the pilot feigned the stegosaurus' death.

River crept into the room behind Wash, slipping silently into the shadows. The corner of her mouth twitched up into a smile as Wash continued his entertaining display.

There was a sudden flash and River jumped back, startled. Where Wash had been, a shimmering ghost of him appeared.

"Before long, I'll be toast, too," he told her.

River nodded sadly. "Soon."


	4. Voices

**Voices**

Prompt: #094 Silence

I've lost the voices. They used to be inside my head never leaving me, but now they're gone and all I can hear is the pounding of silence. They're gone, maybe forever. But I can't let them go. When they're here, I feel so alive.

The voices tell me what to do, what to think, how to act. They're meddlesome, yet I can't in my right mind live without them. I just can't.

The pieces are starting to fall back into place. I'm no longer broken. But I want the voices back. I need them. The silence is killing me.


	5. Lies

**Lies**

Prompt: #003 Church

"Church," River murmured gently to herself. She flipped over the page of the old, dusty bible and began to study the next page, eyes roaming freely over the scrawled writing. Her brow furrowed in concentration and she retrieved a pen from the tabletop, carefully making some corrections to the book.

"River?" Book padded into the room behind her and gave her a questioning stare. "What're you doing?"

"Church," she repeated, more loudly. "A building; a place of worship."

"Yes?" Book asked, curious as to her motives.

"One place of worship. Doesn't make sense."

"Not one –" Book defended.

"Says so. Tells lies."


	6. Creators

**Creators**

Prompt: #005 Eternal

It went on forever, never pausing for a break and always just moving on and on. It never ended and no matter how hard one tried; they'd never be able to see it all.

River knew that, as she stared out into the black. She knew that the universe went on for eternity in every direction and that nothing was what it seemed.

It was bottomless and wide and easy to get lost in.

But the nothingness of the verse was not what created the Reavers, nor was it the edge of the black that did. It was the Alliance.


	7. Waiting

**Waiting**

Prompt: #051 Monsters

I don't know how to escape this insanity. Everything is devoid of description and it's unquantifiable. The pounding in my head won't stop and I can't think what to do.

I can't let myself go back to sleep. I won't let myself.

Sleep is calling my name but I keep pushing it away. Sleep is when _they_ come. I don't want to face them again. I don't want to face those monsters.

They're always there when I close my eyes, waiting. They'll come for me when I'm weak. They'll come for all of us.

I fear it's not safe anymore.


	8. Senseless

**Senseless**

Prompt: #004 Belief

"Doesn't matter. It's fallacious," River told Book animatedly as she gestured at the open bible that lay in front of her.

"River! That's not what it means," Book argued. He shook his head wearily at her before continuing. "What is written in the bible cannot all be taken literally. Of course you won't be able to understand it if you read it like that!"

River cocked her head to the side, digesting. "Why write what it doesn't mean?" she finally asked.

"River. It's not about making sense," Book explained carefully.

River frowned. "What's it about?"

"It's about believing in something."


	9. Evil In Disguise

**Evil In Disguise**

Prompt: #043 Bunnies

Notes: Written for ficlets100

"They're evil," River stated nervously, pointing into the thick brush at her feet. She quickly stepped back a few paces as the grass rustled.

"River?" Simon prompted her gently. "What's the matter?" He reached out and placed a calming hand on her shoulder.

"They're evil!" River repeated. She pointed frantically again at the patch of turf. "They disguise themselves, but I know!" she babbled. "They're not what they seem!"

"What is it, River?" Simon peered down, finally making out a few fluffy, brown bunnies. "The bunnies?" he exclaimed unbelievingly.

River scowled, shaking her head. "Not them!" she said. "That!"


	10. Biology Lesson

**Biology Lesson**

Prompt: #008 School

Notes: Written for ficlets100

"If I wanted schoolin' I'd go to school!" Jayne growled at River. "An' I ain't gonna sit around an' listen to your gorram ramblings! Moonbrained girl!" he spat out. "Get!"

His vain attempts to rid himself of the teen were easily thwarted. River remained where she was next to him at the table in the mess, and continued on when she was sure he'd be quiet. "The proteins on cell membranes are determined by major histocompatibility complex," she explained. "Markers. Know self from what's foreign."

"Huh?" Jayne scratched his head, mystified.

"T and B cells," River stated. "Act against disease."


	11. Into Her Soul

**Into Her Soul**

Prompt: #006 Soul

"It's etched into her soul," River murmured cryptically to Mal as they began the slow descent towards the Companion Training House.

Mal turned to her, confused. "Would you care to enlighten me on what that's spose to mean, lil albatross?"

River shook her head. "It's not meant for you to know." She remained silent as they pulled into port.

Mal studied the girl curiously. "You talkin' about Inara? Being a Companion?"

"It's in her blood. It's in her heart and soul," River stated. "Not meant for you to know."

"It's not?"

"But you see it. You see into her soul."


	12. Just Walls

**Just Walls**

Prompt: #014 Complications

Notes: Written for ficlets100

"But you love him, don't ya?" Kaylee asked her friend for what felt like the millionth time. She glanced up, a mischievous grin on her face.

"It's more complicated than that, mei-mei," Inara replied. She brushed her hand through the mechanic's hair and was just about to explain better when River appeared at the door.

"No complications," River stated knowingly. "Just walls. Put them up; let no one in. Thinks it'll save the heart, but it only tears deeper."

She paused, as if to let her words sink in to their full meaning. "Not really there. No complications, just walls."


	13. Sacrifices

**Sacrifices**

Prompt: #095 Found

Notes: Written for ficlets100

"You gave up everything you had to find me," River said to Simon knowingly, her voice barely above a whisper. She knew, after all, about everything that he had sacrificed for her.

He had sacrificed his job as a trauma surgeon on Osiris, which was his pride and joy; his livelihood. He had given up his money to fund in her freedom and had his accounts shut off as well.

An even larger a sacrifice than that was his family. He had forfeited his relationship with his parents to help her.

River smiled sadly in apology. "You found me broken."


	14. Falling

**Falling**

Prompt: #096 Writers' Choice: Fall

Notes: Written for ficlets100

They're coming. I can feel their nauseating presences, pushing at my mind and ripping through the paper-thin barriers that Simon's medicines have put up. I don't know how long I can hold them off, or how long I can go before I fall again. I don't want to break. I can't! Not now! Simon has done so much and...and if I fall, he'll fall too.

He's given up so much already and if he falls, I'll have no one left. I need him.

We've been through enough. Both of us.

_Wuh de tyen, ah!_ Please don't let us fall! Please!


	15. Christmas

**Christmas**

Prompt: #077 Christmas

Notes: Written for ficlets100. This actually reminds me an awful lot of Drusilla (Buffy the Vampire Slayer // Angel)!

"He's greedy!" River muttered quietly to herself as she rocked backwards and forwards with her feet tucked up under her and her arms pulling her legs to her chest. "Wants more than his share. It's not fair."

She continued to move slowly, stretching out her long slender fingers and then clenching them into fists against her legs.

"What's that, River?" Simon prompted her from the doorway.

RIver turned to look at her brother and stared up at him for a moment. "It's not Christmas yet, but he's peeking at the presents," she explained.

Simon watched her blankly.

"It's greedy!" she repeated.


	16. The Cold Hard Truth

**The Cold Hard Truth**

Prompt: #011 Bodies

Notes: Written for ficlets100.

Bodies. There were so many of them, cold and lifeless, staring up at her with unseeing eyes. They had all just lain down and stopped. They had stopped eating, sleeping, breathing. Everything.

All that remained were their still decaying corpses. In some cases, such as the bodies inside the building complex, they were remarkably preserved making it that more disturbing. They were dead, but still, they talked to her.

They told her things, got inside her head, showing her memories that weren't her own. They pressed on her mind and wouldn't let go.

They wanted the truth to come out.


	17. Weakness

**Weakness**

Prompt: #009. Education

Notes: Written for ficlets100.

Knowledge was her weakness.

It was why she'd been chosen to be the subject for the Alliance's various tests. It was why she was valuable to them. It was why she hated to sleep.

She had received the highest level of education and had learned a few very important things from it that made her wish she were stupid – or less intelligent, anyhow. Among the fascinating discoveries, she had learnt that knowledge was, in fact, power. Power corrupted. And ignorance was bliss.

If she had the power to do so she would go back and change herself.


	18. Unwell

**Unwell**

Lyrics from: _Unwell _by Matchbox Twenty

_I'm not crazy_

_I'm just a little unwell_

Her dreams were black and white and every colour imaginable. They told her stories of things she had seen and done. They told her about things she'd never encountered before; things she shouldn't know.

They scared her and exhilarated her and she knew that her dreams and what they did to her could be quite easily confused with craziness.

She wasn't crazy, though.

She knew she wasn't.

She was just a girl who'd had the misfortune to run into the Alliance.

They'd made her sick.

She wasn't crazy at all.

They'd see.


	19. Colours And Shapes

**Colours And Shapes**

"Colours. Shapes. I see them but I can't connect. I'm cut off from the reality in which the rest of humanity resides."

River rocked back and forth, knees pulled up to her chest and hair slung messily about her shoulders. She felt pressure as tears built up in her eyes and squeezed them shut, resisting.

She wanted her mind back. She wanted her own thoughts to think.

When she opened her eyes once more, Kaylee was there, arms open and welcoming.

She tried to smile.

"Hey, River," Kaylee greeted her.

She nodded.

"River, are you okay, honey?"

Her tears fell.


	20. Laer ton s'cigam

**_Laer ton s'cigam_**

"Magic's not real. Childs play."

River pierces Jayne with an all-knowing stare. Her lip turns up at the corner.

Jayne stares back at her, confusion written all over his face.

"If it ain't real, how come you knew what I was thinkin'?"

She smiles.

"Well?" Jayne.

"That's easy. Her brain has been altered by the Alliance," Simon throws in, frowning.

Jayne scrunches up his face. "Huh."

"Playing games. Laer ton s'cigam."

"Say what?"

"Laer ton s'cigam."

Jayne looks at her blankly.

"Magic's not real," Simon explains helpfully. "It's backwards."

"Got the trick. Smart."

"Whatever. I still think it's real."

"Pretend."

_fin._


	21. Not A Dream

**_Not A Dream_**

She can taste it. Coppery. Thick. Real.

It's not a dream this time. It's not in her head.

She can actually taste the texture of her own blood.

She can feel it fill her mouth; she can feel it bathe her teeth in red.

It's not a dream this time. It's really happening.

She should be in pain, she should be miserable, but it's real.

It's her blood. She is bleeding. Not somebody she only knows in dreams.

It's real and for once, she doesn't have to wonder whose blood it is she tastes.

She knows the answer.

It's hers.

_fin._


	22. Gasping For Breath

_A/N: Tag to 'Out Of Gas'._

**_Gasping For Breath_**

It's cold. So very cold. Soon it will be so cold that they will freeze.

The human body will slowly shut itself down and death will come.

Death will free them all.

They will not die gasping for breath as the oxygen leaves. They will not suffer.

It will be a quiet death. A relatively painless death. (They'll slip into unconsciousness before there's any pain to be felt.)

There'll be nothing left for them in the 'verse and they will have no reason to hold on anymore.

They can slip out of their bodies and let their spirits soar.

Soon.

_fin._


	23. Tangled Mess

**_Tangled Mess_**

Her hair is a tangled mess around her face, wisps of brown snaking in every direction. It is useless trying to tame it really but Inara is well schooled in making things look pretty and her fingers are so very soothing against her scalp. She relaxes and allows the older woman to attempt the impossible.

She leans back into Inara's touch, smiling and well aware of the soft grin on her friends' face even though she can't see it with her eyes. It is in the way she touches her. It leaks from her skin.

It's perfect.

Her hair gleams.

_fin._


	24. Some Genius

_**Some Genius**_

She can't comprehend why Simon saved her.

He risked everything, his life, his job and his connections back to his family and friends for her. He lost them all, too and for what? His sister? She knows she is special and that the bond between family is strong but why would Simon do all of that for her?

He had so much to live for and yet for her, he threw it all away. He selflessly risked everything.

Even after all these years together aboard Serenity, she can't understand.

It doesn't make a spot of sense.

(Some genius, she is.)

_fin._


	25. Those Left Behind, She Had Saved

_**Those Left Behind, She Had Saved**_

Against all odds, she had done it. She had told him "my turn" and had run out into the wave of Reavers intent on killing them all. She had slain the monsters – he could only imagine the horror of those few minutes, drawn out to what felt like hours – and most importantly, she had survived.

Those left behind, she had saved.

Book, of course, had not been so lucky, nor had Wash. The loss of their friends' would never be forgotten.

Despite everything, it was hard not to be relieved.

It was over.

They were still flying.

_fin._


	26. Chaotic Mess

_**Chaotic Mess**_

I can't take this anymore. I just can't. I've let everyone I care about down in the matter of a few days and I can't fix it. I don't know how to fix the chaotic mess I've created.

Maybe it would be better off if I were dead. Maybe then, people could go about their lives with who they want to be with and with fewer disappointments to pin them down.

God knows with me around there can only be more pain and more heartbreak, for them and for me. It follows me.

If I were out of the picture it wouldn't be able to follow me. People would be free. They'd all be so much freer without me. Happier.

Maybe I should let them have that peace. Maybe I should do it.

One swift movement and I'll just fade away.

_fin._


	27. Silenced By The Past

_**Silenced By The Past**_

"There's no list," River murmurs. "No list, no record. No need for them." Her eyes widen slightly at this revelation and she glances down at her unusually still hands.

She studies the cells of her skin while she's able to, before Simon's latest batch of meds wear off (she knows it's only a matter of time before they do) and her hands begin to shake again.

"No names, no call signs." She pauses and takes a deep breath. She slowly lets it out. Her voice wavers when she next speaks and rightfully so. "They don't exist."

The memory silences her.

_fin._


	28. Now Will Not Be Forever

**_Now Will Not Be Forever_**

There are flames and smoke. Spirals of it. Fire. It twists, a cyclone built of heat with no sense of gravity, no sense of direction. Twists. Turns with the air flow. Eats what it touches with fingers so thin they are wisps of what once was.

Silence. Follows the air. Burns what's left. Leaves droplets but not enough. There can't be enough. Too much has been taken from under the tree. Too much dissolved.

The fire sparks an image, an illusion. What is now will not be forever. The world will burn and everyone will burn with it.

River included.

_fin._


	29. You Chose Wrong

_**You Chose Wrong**_

"Always a choice."

Back, forth. Back, forth.

Pause.

"Right or wrong."

Hands tangle in hair.

"Wrong or right."

Messy brown curls ripple like satin through her fingertips.

"Right."

She clamps her eyes shut. She inhales deeply and shudders as she exhales.

"Wrong."

Her eyes snap open again.

"Always a choice."

Her gaze flicks to Jayne's.

"You chose wrong."

_fin._


	30. Its Bidding

_**Its Bidding**_

"_I've tried everything to get away"_

- Over & Over by Three Days Grace

She can't run far enough or fast enough away. She has tried and it has failed. 'It' has the uncanny ability to be everywhere she is even if she doesn't invite 'it'. 'It' is there all the time and at the same time, it never is and was never meant to be.

In the moments of peace 'it' gives her, the anxiety does not leave but doubles for she knows 'it' will soon be back. 'It' always is. 'It' will be there when she turns the corner and 'it' will be there when she dreams and when she wakes.

The worst part is knowing that 'it' is not hers. 'It' is not hers to know. And yet she knows 'it'. 'It' knows her.

'It' is what propels her to escape when the big bad man (the crew call him Jayne) comes a tappin' with his heavy tin. 'It' is what makes her knock Simon out cold (poor brother, but he'll live) and when she sets Mal on the path to Miranda.

Only at rest 'it' will leave her and so until that time she will do its bidding.

_fin._


	31. Broken Inside And Can't Be Fixed

_**Broken Inside And Can't Be Fixed**_

_I'm not all right; I'm broken inside, broken inside_

I'm broken. None of them say it but I know it's true. I am not who I am. I am never who I am, never myself. They took that away from me at the Alliance building. Gone. All of it, gone.

There are traces, like remnants of the smell of hot bread in the oven well after it's been taken out. I am the bread. No butter. Only fillings that I don't want, that I shouldn't know the taste of. Fillings that aren't mine.

Broken inside. That's what I am. Can't be fixed.

And nobody can save me. No one.

_fin._


	32. Wasn't So Sweet

_**Wasn't So Sweet**_

Sweet sixteen. Wasn't so sweet. There was no cake and no balloons, none of those tiny party hats atop smiling faces. Only pain. Needles pricking skin. Tubes and wires. A shiny surfaced scalpel, so sharp and silver. Pain and flashes and blue. So much blue. Too much. So much.

Lost dreams and memories. An avalanche of thoughts. Her gifts. Other people's secrets and remembrances. Not hers. They're not hers but they are and she sees them and they won't leave her alone. She doesn't want them. No celebrating. Time does not exist on the level. Doesn't matter. Sweet sixteen. Changed. Transformed.

Never to go back. Doesn't work that way. Not ever.

_fin._


	33. Supposed To Know

_**Supposed To Know**_

It was difficult to say what made her do it. Was it the burning in her chest? The feeling deep down that this was what she was supposed to do? Or was there no reason behind her actions other than the thought crossed her mind and so it happened? What was there to make a case for either way? How could a decision be manufactured? How had she been triggered?

Too many questions. Too many words. She couldn't understand a half of them and the rest were not words for her. The rest were things she wasn't supposed to know.

_fin._


	34. It Will Crumble

_**It Will Crumble**_

The flames rise high above the ground, licking at what is left of the swing, consuming it with fiery orange tendrils. It blankets the rope and eats at the seat of the swing, burning brightly, without hesitation. It is pure. It is without malice and yet all it does is harm.

River stares at it.

Soon the ropes of the swing will snap, the seat will fall and it'll land amongst the rest of the debris, of what is left of Haven. It will crumble in the dust and be no more than a memory, erased. Gone. It burns quickly.

_fin._


	35. Things in There

_**Things in There**_

"They put things in there."

"Huh?" Jayne glances over his shoulder, at the slender figure bent over at a strange angle and watching him.

"In the boxes. Squares inside squares. Little boxes."

"Riiiight." He shakes his head as if to clear her words from his mind and then drags a hand through his hair.

River trails her fingers through her hair; her fingers catch on knots near the ends and she tugs at it gently, subconsciously. She steps forwards. The fabric of her dress swishes around her bare legs.

Jayne pries open one of the crates and peers inside.

"What the guay are you doin'?" Mal calls from the doorway leading to the infirmary.

"They put things in there," Jayne explains. "She said so. Squares inside boxes or some such."

"Jayne?"

"Yeah, Mal?" He tilts his head to the side.

Mal rolls his eyes. "Quit snooping and do your job. I ordered you to get those crates away near an hour ago."

"Yeah boss." Jayne glares at River and then picks up the nearest crate.

Once Mal is out of sight and Jayne is onto the third crate, River walks up close behind him. "Want to look?"

Jayne merely grunts and hauls the next box away.

_fin._


	36. A Cleansing Force

_**A Cleansing Force**_

Rain has never put bad feelings into her before. She has always connected it with peace and calm and the renewal of life. It's been to her a cleansing force. She used to dance in the rain when she was sad and it cheered her up.

Now though, it scares her. It's like a darkness spreading throughout the sky, pummelling down in an almost constant thread. Digging into the earth, covering it, drowning it. Soon the whole planet will be covered and ruined, no longer able to support life. Terraforming will be reversed. Destroyed. Won't matter anymore.

The cows and trees and birds that live in those trees will die, their homes lost, their existence covered over by water, deep, drenching. No survivors but those who run. The animals will be lost. No way for them to fly to another planet.

The world is breaking itself and there is nothing that anyone can do to stop it. She can only watch while the crew hurries to leave, and wonder at the fierceness of nature. If there is one thing she has never been able to understand completely, it is that, for nature is without predictability.

The rain pours on and she wraps her arms tightly around her middle.

_fin._


	37. Recollections

_**Recollections**_

River sometimes thinks back on her first days at the Academy. They are recollections mostly, some of them fuzzy, some not all there, and some with added bits that didn't happen. She sifts through them, wanders about in the stories her mind tells her, wonders at their magnificence and at the lies and untruths.

How much of it is real? She doesn't know. She can determine the origin of some, but there are others that fade between reality and a dream and something else she can't quite understand or quantify. Thread as thin as silk connecting them. It's like the memories were implanted. Forced upon her. Sewed beneath her skin. Not hers. She wasn't paying enough attention and got crushed.

But then she remembers, that's not possible. Not anymore. The thoughts have to be hers, or else she is a freak, a moonbrain, a science project. A reader. The technology to implant memories was lost long ago, she is certain. Unsure. Curious about. Does it still exist?

The Alliance ruined her. She's trying to heal and Simon is trying to help her heal, but they are failing. There are too many pieces, not all hers, to put back together.

_fin._


	38. The Flowing Dress

_**The Flowing Dress**_

The dress flows around her small figure as she twists and turns in elegant motions. It swishes against her legs, the fabric soft and comforting. A reminder. She is alive. She is free. She is one with the world, and at the same time, she is one tiny barely noticeable glimmer of life that will soon be over.

She spins and the world spins and life goes on around her, other tiny glimmers of life and unlife and misery and happiness and something in between. All has pattern, a rhythm, a tessellating jigsaw that if positioned correctly will make a perfect shape and provide answers. The outline is already there; it just needs to be filled. Ordered. Given reason and structure.

It's a bit like her. Disjointed. With a hole inside. Wrong. It should be whole, once was, but someone broke it, twisted it like she is twisting now, until it no longer fits together. But that's just it. She ain't quite right… but not all of her has to be.

She dances, smiles, moves, glides. The dress follows her form. She realises she's all right.

_fin._


	39. Travelling the Distance

_**Travelling the Distance**_

Glimmering, tiny pinpricks. It's hard to imagine that they are anything more than that. It's hard to imagine they are huge and dead and gone, but still visible to the naked eye, because they're so far away and the light is still travelling the distance; in time the light will no longer shine and they will catch up and the star will be well and truly gone and forgotten.

They are like little messages with secret meanings that only a few chosen can understand. Stare into the stars and read what you see. There are answers and questions and the simple beauty that is space. It makes her think about her place in the universe, and how insignificant she is.

The thought doesn't scare her like she thinks it scares other people. It fills her with calm. She runs inside, grins at her brother from behind the couch, and quickly reaches over to poke him. When she has his attention, she runs back outside. "One day," she says, "we'll travel far out there, among the stars."

Simon laughs. "You wish."

She nods.

"Better get back inside and finish your homework or dad'll be mad," Simon adds. He turns and heads in.

She takes a moment longer to stare up at the night sky and she smiles. One day, they will go out there, she is certain. She can feel the pull of space and adventure already.

_fin._


	40. Gathering Storm

_**Gathering Storm**_

A bleak sky, grey, dull. _Serenity_ curls and twists and floats through the gathering storm clouds. Dives. Straightens. Keeps flying.

Symmetry. Balance. Wash flies her well and _Serenity _rewards them with stability. She stays strong, won't break. Fights the wind and the forces of nature, of the storm. Growing by the minute. Thick. The storm is getting closer.

Clouds thickening, blanketing, puffs of white. _Serenity _flies, mighty. River hears her humming, groaning. Protesting, but not stopping. The ship knows not how to give up. Stays strong. Beat by the wind and pounding rain. Flashes of light in the distance.

River trails her fingers along _Serenity's_ inside. Silver, cold. Colder than the storm outside. Warm near to the engine room, the heart. The storm rages on and _Serenity _and her crew wait it out and fly onwards.

_fin._


	41. Calming the Pulse

_**Calming the Pulse**_

"Say it," River says, holding her head. The crew are stupid. Moonbrains. Won't tell what's in their head and leave it for her to find out in waves of pain, flashes, memories, thoughts, hurtling back and forth in her head and outside and back again.

Mal frowns at her. "Say what?"

"It hurts!" she whimpers.

"Say what?" Mal asks again.

"Just say it!" She screamed. "Just say what you need to say. What's on the inside. Needs to come out. Burning you up. Burning. It hurts so much!"

"River, I don't know what you want me to do."

Idiot. He never has been that receptive to what's right in front of him.

"Tell Inara the ways of the heart. The pulsing. The longing. And she will set it free and you will be free and the pulsing and longing will calm."

Mal looks at her as if she is crazy – and maybe she is – and shakes his head and leaves her there. She can still feel his emotions for Inara after he is gone; they sear, setting her insides on fire.

She finds no relief for the burning in her, and knows until the words are set free and Mal admits to them, she will have to carry them around with her and live with an echo of the pain that he carries.

_fin._


	42. Musings and What Ifs

_**Musings and What Ifs**_

He wondered sometimes, _what if?_ What if things were different? What if the Alliance hadn't decided to use River's brain as their rutting playground? What if it had been him instead? All the questions and ponderings he has only brings him more and more of the same, to tie up his mind in thoughts of what could be, when he should be focusing instead on what is: that his and River's reality is those things did happen and River was ruined by the Alliance. She will never be the same girl as he knew Before.

On a subconscious level, he divides up their life in parts: Before and After. Before was a simpler time. It was of joking with River, eating berries from the neighbours trees, dancing and twirling and running through the wilderness near their parent's home, and having nothing more serious than homework to worry about.

After is where they are now, onboard Serenity with criminals, a Companion and a preacher. Kaylee and Wash are more difficult to place as their jobs are indirectly involved in the crew's heists, but he is hesitant to label them as petty thieves. He and River are the fugitives.

The crew participates in illegal activity on a daily basis. They have to in order to survive. The 'verse is rough and not at all like the core planets that he and River grew up on. It isn't odd to be nearly shot or killed most days, and he cleans up injuries the crew has nearly as often as they stop planet side.

After is a bleak existence following the lives they lived Before. But, he knows, they are better off now. The Alliance altered their lives forever and there is no going back. It is safer where they are now, constantly on the move, in the sky or making temporary stops at myriad planets.

Their reality is one that fits in perfectly with where they are now. There is no changing time and so they can only make the best of what they have, and that is a home, and friends, and each other. He isn't usually an optimist person, but considering all they have been through, they are lucky to be where they are now.

The ifs and maybes still play at the edges of his thoughts, though. What if? If only things could be different. And it occurs to him that they can be different... they only need to change things for themselves.

_fin._


	43. Perfect Candidate

_**Perfect Candidate**_

It was easy to see it in the beginning, in the way they watched her. She was their light in the darkness, their hope. She was smarter than them all put together and she had promise for their plans. From their first meeting, she sensed it, but the lure of knowledge and something more exciting than all the other schools could offer her was too strong. She ignored her feelings. She ignored the ice cold fear that was creeping at the back of her mind.

And they did things to her.

She was perfect. Just what they needed. She was smart and graceful and beautiful. She was young and healthy. A perfect candidate. And so they used her for their plans. They did things to her. Bad things. Unspeakable things. Things that no one should live through. She came out different. A weapon and a girl, sharing a body. Unnatural.

That's when River Tam became something else.

_fin._


	44. Snow & Tea

_**Snow & Tea**_

The cold seeps deep into her skin. It chills her fingers and makes them turn to icicles. She breathes and the air is white, crisp, like it has been colour dyed, or shown in its pure form for the first time. The pure form it takes is evil. There is nothing warm about it, nothing pleasant, and nothing safe.

The cold is set on taking over her body and controlling her every move, sending shivers down her spine and raising the tiny hairs on her arms and back of her neck. She hurries toward the silver speck in the distance, Simon struggling to keep up and yelling at her to wait, to slow down.

The cold makes her jumpy though, bouncy, and she keeps running, skipping, prancing almost, through the snow. They reach Serenity in far too long a time, and there, River slows, wrapping her arms around her middle and enjoying the warmer conditions inside the ship.

The cold has slowed Simon. He is out of breath when he catches up. "River," he says.

"Warmer now," she replies quickly, and before he can say anything else she hurries toward the mess. "Tea to warm the body."

Simon studies her a moment, and then smiles and follows. "Tea would be perfect," he agrees.

_fin._


	45. Daddy Will Come

_**Daddy Will Come**_

_Daddy will come and take us home_, River says. She knows he will. He's not a mean old man like he tells everyone. His heart is soft. He tries to hide from that fact, but it's never any less true. He is a big softy and he will come and bring his ship and his crew and he will rescue them.

Simon doesn't believe it. He shakes his head and makes mutterings. He says, _daddy won't come._ His hope is lost. Ripped from him. He can't see the reason why _daddy will come for them _and can't see through her metaphor. Too literal in his interpretation. Doesn't comprehend.

_He will_. Soon he will believe her. The truth will be revealed._ Daddy will come._

_fin._


	46. Deathly Gifts

_NOTE: Some dialogue is for Serenity. Not mine!_

_**Deathly Gifts**_

Her gift is death. She knows it the moment she sees her crew gathered, hopeless, behind stacks of crates. They are all waiting for the Reavers to come and get them, waiting for death and hoping to stave it and all of the evil things that Reavers do to people like them off as long as possible.

She will save them. It isn't time yet, but very soon it will be. When it is, she will gift them with death. She will save them and she will be their hero. For them to survive, some must die. She may be one of them. Some of _them_ may die. She may not be able to save them all.

But maybe not. Maybe they will all be okay and it will be the Reavers that will fall.

The weapon inside of her knows all this and it burns for release, waiting impatiently beneath her skin and deep under her consciousness.

_Soon_, it tells her.

And then _it_ happens. Simon is hit. He falls back as if in slow motion, his eyes wide and one hand clutching his chest. He hits the ground hard; she hears it like a brick slapping wet concrete and it feels like she has been punched in the stomach. "Simon!"

The next few minutes pass in a blur.

Simon stutters out, "River. River, I'm sorry." His expression is one of a man lost to battle, a man ready to die.

Her heart wrenches. "No. No."

"I hate to leave."

The knowledge comes to her, from where she does not know, that he won't be going anywhere. His wound is not fatal. "You won't."

_It's time._ She can feel the weapon ready itself. "You take care of me, Simon. You've always taken care of me." She can sense his confusion. She smiles softly.

Her gift is death. She carries it around with her in the weapon part of her, and the uncontrollable need to kill that is now inside of her. The weapon surges to the forefront but before it can take full possession of her body, she says, "my turn."

She runs, throws Simon's bag back through the door, and as the door closes, she watches Simon and the others disappear. She feels the weapon take a hold of her. The Reavers close in.

_fin._


	47. Psychology of Love

_**Psychology of Love**_

She doesn't want him to know that she hates being alone. To admit it would be to admit she likes his company and that goes against all human contact lessons she has learned from the rest of the crew. They play hard to get, hide the truth and wait for something that may never eventuate. And so shall she, because surely there is reason behind their actions.

She gives Jayne meaningful looks sometimes, too, but he mistakes them for her being crazy. Stupid ape man. He is blind to what is right in front of him. He sees with his eyes but not his heart. Doesn't understand her ways or her attempts to send morse code messages to him by fluttering her eyelids.

There has to be reason behind why the rest of the crew do this. They don't receive odd looks from their secret partner in crime. Maybe she is doing it wrong. They play at secret messages and secret looks, and they seem to get nowhere, sometimes somewhere but not anywhere near enough. She has been trying the same, following their patterns, but getting nowhere.

It can't be that difficult, can it?

_fin._


	48. Star Gazing

**_Star Gazing_**

There's a bright light in the darkness that threatens to blind anyone who looks too closely at it. She spends her time peeking at it, getting tiny glimpses, testing the theory that it will send her mind reeling into some kind of insanity. Her eyes sting. Her mind wanders.

The answers are there, all there and hiding, ready for someone to happen across and reveal. She can see the edges of them. Fuzzy. White. Blinding. They are so very close, within her grasp should she merely reach out for them, but to do so might rip her mind open and fill it again with new content, new thoughts, new ideas.

She breathes it all in and smiles and waves at the stars, and when Mal asks her what she's doing, she whispers, "Star gazing."

Mal nods, shoves his hands deep into his coat pockets and stands behind her. There he remains, looking over her like the stars, while she continues to marvel in the beauty of the universe.

_fin._


	49. Brain Games

_**Brain Games**_

"Don't ever talk to your mother like that!" The man – her teacher – towered over her and if she didn't know that she could beat him to the floor inside of a second or two, she would have been afraid.

Rather, she was just annoyed and mildly bored. "She's not my mother! My mother is at home with father and Simon. My real mother would never hit me."

"This lady," Rook insisted," is your real mother. River, you are deluded to think otherwise. Aria is and has always been your mother. Your family. She gave birth to you."

"Lies. All of them, lies!" She reached up, tangling her fingers in her hair and pressing down on her scalp. She could feel the uneven parts where they had cut into her. Her mind was beginning to unwind.

"River." Aria stepped towards her. A hand out, hopeful look on her face.

River's instincts kicked in. The next moment she was aware of, she was breathing hard with Aria's limp form on the ground beneath her. Her eyes widened and she staggered to her feet. Her gaze darted around the room. It settled on Rook.

"You!" she spat and then she lunged at him. "You did this to me! What did you do?" She clawed at his front, tore his shirt and there was a thrill when he recoiled.

"I was just following orders!"

His answer took her by surprise and so when the two large men entered the room, she didn't attack them. She kept glaring at Rook and lunged across the room, pushing at him, hitting his chest. Fury filled her and her desperation got the better of her. All that mattered was her survival. And Rook was getting in the way of that.

She clawed at Rook's chest. His screams were drowned out by the heavy feeling in her mind. It was like something was blocking out all sound and for a few moments nothing existed but Rook and herself. Then it was just her.

The door burst open across from her as she fell to the floor beside Rook's unmoving body. Two men entered and when they reached her side, one of them held her down while the other injected a needle into her arm. Her body refused to cooperate with her thoughts and so she didn't react in time. It was over before she could react.

The last thing she heard before she passed out was, "she's the one. River Tam has all the traits suited to be our new weapon."

_fin_


	50. Shouldn't

_**Shouldn't**_

In space and time, and in time and space. She exists. Shouldn't exist, but shouldn't is wrong because she is here. Alive. Real.

She has decided the 'verse is lax in deciding what should be allowed. Things that shouldn't be, often are. It has allowed her. Allows her. Shouldn't. It really shouldn't, for she is all wrong.

Wrong.

Wrong inside and out. She shouldn't be. Is.

She exists and she lives and she is.

The universe is an idiot.

Life, existence, is one thing she can never truly understand, or be a true part of, and yet she has both.

_fin._


	51. Unique Personality

**_Unique Personality_**

_I'm hearing voices all around_

_I'm hearing voices calling out_

_What would they say?_

_What would it change?_

"_Hearing Voices" by One Republic_

Sometimes she wondered whose voices she heard in her mind. They were as clear as her own thoughts when she was lucid and sometimes they were stronger and stuck out more to her than any thought of hers ever did. Each thought had its own unique personality to it and she was curious. Were the personalities that of real people? Did she know the people or had she met them in passing, or were they just made-up? A figment of her imagination?

Confusion was a large part of her existence; the voices were a major part of that. They contradicted, they lied, the revealed truths to her that she shouldn't ever know, and they screamed their pain at her. All of them. Contorting her reality and showing her a reality that wasn't hers and never would be. She didn't know them by name, but by the volume of their voice, the way they spoke to her and the way they affected her, and she didn't know what was real.

Were they real? Was what they told her real? Could it be quantified or was it all lies?

She wondered if it made any difference. Was it the voices she heard that were important, or was it how she interpreted them? Was her reality the lie? Was everything she thought true an illusion, and the illusions all fake? Was Simon really her brother, and were they really onboard Firefly class spaceship, Serenity? Did Kaylee exist? Did Jayne? The preacher man? Zoe and Wash? Mal? Inara?

Or was she at the Alliance complex still, with their doctors toying around with her brain and making her believe things that weren't? Hear things that did not exist? See things and feel them. Smell them. Was any of it real? She could very well be stuck in a lab somewhere with vivid hallucinations, an experiment of sorts that the Alliance had thought would be of use (for what purpose she did not know; they had made her a weapon so perhaps it was an extension of that, assuming of course that they had actually made her a weapon and that wasn't all a dream).

She could only wonder and hope and analyse her situation. She could just live her life as it was –for what is living life but living whatever is dished out for you, in whatever form it may be?

Her world was one of uncertainties and irregularities and things that wouldn't ever make complete sense (she had tried to understand but it did not compute). And one constant in that was the voices. She took solace in the fact that they kept her company and where all else failed, she had them to lean back on and to listen to. It didn't really matter if she was the only one who could hear them. All that mattered was that they _were_.

_fin_


	52. Craving Sunlight

_**Craving Sunlight**_

Her only wish is to feel warm again, to feel the weight of sunshine on her skin another time. She wants to remember it, to know it once more. It's been a long time since she's seen the sun.

The school is not the paradise she thought it would be, but rather like a prison. There are rules and restrictions and the lessons make her suspicious. It's like they are being tested. And part of that test is enduring life locked up inside.

But no more. It's too much. She craves sunlight like she needs oxygen, with a burning passion that will never extinguish. She tells her instructor.

"Just one more day," he says.

The next day he tells her the same thing. Her suspicions grow stronger and she begins to code her messages.

One day things change. The lessons are worse. Experiments. They're being experimented on, all of them.

Before she can lose sight of who she is, she codes a message to Simon. She doesn't say how much she misses him as that's a given. What she does put in the message is much more to the point.

_They're hurting us._

___fin._


	53. Falling and Plummeting

**_Falling and Plummeting_**

On contact, the surface of the ball reacts and the ball rebounds, bouncing high, high, higher into the air. Gravity slows it and soon it's falling once more, plummeting, and then rebounding again. It doesn't bounce quite as high the next time, or the next, but it doesn't give up trying until it's out of energy.

River scrambles across the floor to retrieve the ball. She palms it in her right hand and lets her fingers stretch outwards to reveal it. Her eyes study it like they've never seen anything so colourful. She memorizes its surfaces. Things make perfect sense.

_fin._


	54. Better the Minds

**_ Better the Minds_**

The choice is easy. It's shiny and new and it's challenging. The Academy offers a program unlike anything other she has seen. It has subjects other schools do not and the brochures explain how they strive to better the minds of all who go through it. It's exactly what she has been looking and hoping for.

"That one," she tells her mother. She pastes the smile on her face that she knows will get her anything she desires. Her parents are easy to manipulate.

Together they read through the material from start to finish.

"It looks perfect for you."

_fin._


	55. Odd Looks

_**Odd Looks**_

Dreamy eyes look at him. "Y'all right, little albatross?"

No response.

Mal rolls his eyes. It's what he expected but even so it makes him feel a bit off. The staring and the odd looks from the girl are more than a little bit concerning, especially with the frequency of it all and the additional small smiles and that time she winked at him. Eerie.

Girl's not all right, he knows, but surely she's righter than to think anything of him as more than what he is. Doc wouldn't be too happy to find out his sisters got a crush. He's somewhat creepified by the situation his own self.

Tilting his head to the side, he considers her. She is still watching him, and grinning, and as he watches her right back, she wraps her arms around her middle and visibly shivers, still with her mad smile and an added bit of crazy in her eyes.

"Right then," he says. "You'd best run along an' find Simon. That brother of yours worries, you know."

A giggle.

He sighs. "He was in the engine room with Kaylee last I saw. You want, I can take you there."

"Brother's busy." A smirk.

"I'm sure he won't mind taking a break from whatever it is he's doing to see his sister." Mal nods his head toward the engine room. "C'mon."

River resolutely remains on the spot. "Busy."

"Yeah, I heard." Mal tries to get her to follow him again.

"With Kaylee," River adds.

He stares at her, open-mouthed a moment, and then closes it. "Oh. In that case, River. Would you like to see Inara?"

"Cherry blossom. So sweet and sharp. Don't push too hard or you'll knock the flower off and cut your hand on the thorns."

"Great," Mal says. "Inara's shuttle it is."

_fin._


	56. A Happy Little River

_**A Happy Little River**_

In her lucid moments she remembers times that were better, times when she was better. Those were times when she was a different person. She was River, a happy little River, a highly intelligent River, who often outdid her older brother. She adored her times with Simon – still does. They played together, conversed about trivial topics, shared smiles.

She thinks of her present too, and how different it is, how different she is. Her life now is needles, and memories that aren't hers, and screams that aren't there; meanwhile, Simon's life's on hold. Both desire normalcy that they'll never have.

_fin._


	57. Broken Now

**_Broken Now_**

Many unsuccessful hours of trying to act normal had resulted in a crashing realisation: she was not normal, not now and not ever again. Maybe she had once been but those days were long gone.

Of course even then she had been smarter than most people around. She was gifted, well beyond her years, and she was different from most in that she actually tapped into that potential.

She wanted to be her best and so her best is what she was.

Now, she is not at her best. They tried to make her better. They failed.

She's broken now.

_fin._


	58. Her Curse

_**Her Curse**_

Simon's arms are warm. When they're wrapped around her, she feels safe, like nothing can ever harm her or tear them apart. But she knows better than to think that. Simon's arms are warm and comforting but that is all; they can't provide the protection she needs.

When the Alliance gets a hold of her, again, she doesn't blame Simon. He doesn't deserve that burden. She instead focuses her energy on tapping into the part of her that _they_ created. The weapon. The weapon, _her_ burden, protects her.

She wonders briefly how it is that her curse is her salvation.

_fin_


	59. Lorikeets

_**Lorikeets**_

The chirping of birds wakes her up. Flocks of them fly, blocking out the sky, turning blue to rainbow colours.

They beat their wings, the sound much louder than the hum of Serenity's engine. Serenity's engine hums quietly; it's noticeable, but in the background. These birds flap and sing like they want everyone to hear.

She smiles and shifts position to get a better look, freeing herself of the blanket. And then she stands. She stretches out her arms, feels the first rays of sunlight and listens to the birds. She sways lazily, dances, and watches the morning come in.

_fin._


	60. Grow Closer

_**Grow Closer**_

"All according to plan," Mal said, as Inara gave him a funny look.

River sensed a truth to that statement though some of his meaning was more... for entertainment purposes, than to provide comfort. In actual fact, Mal had not intended half of what had happened. The half that had resulted in their getting the job done had been pure luck.

The other half, the stuff he'd actually planned, had flopped and nearly left them to disaster.

"Of course," Inara replied, rolling her eyes. Also, interestingly, filled with amusement.

River tilted her head to the side, watching them grow closer.

_fin._


	61. Built for the Sky

_**Built for the Sky**_

Sometimes it's nice to be alone.

The ship is empty, silent, but for the echoes of her own footsteps, her own sounds. Serenity doesn't speak. Not when there is only the two of them. These are times for quiet contemplation. This is the only time she and Serenity are free to relax and listen to their own thoughts and feelings, and nobody else's.

She wonders how Simon is coping with the separation. He was ripped from them, taken away, and now all that remains of him is her, and the few belongings he left behind. A few dress shirts, a broken radio, a few medical supplies.

It's okay, though. They'll bring him back. They always do. Serenity is not without her crew for more than is absolutely necessary. At least one remains behind at all times to guard her.

The ship sighs. River can sense her relief, and how she is glad for the break, but also how anxious she is to set off again. Serenity was built for the sky, and just as her crew will always return to her, Serenity will always find a way back to the sky. She will keep flying. She will sail.

If she's still flying, all is well in the 'verse. If she's down, grounded, more often than not, something is wrong.

She's yet to fail them, and they her.

She always makes it back to the sky.

_fin._


	62. Resurfacing

_**Resurfacing**_

Her insides squirm about like masses of sea creatures, like octopi, their tentacles a tangle. She can feel the food she ate pushing at the back of her throat. It's a solid force, pushing, pushing, wanting back out. Further down, her stomach turns. Something isn't right.

She keels over, doubles over, face contorted with pain. So much pain. There's so much of it. It's too much to bear on her own, too much for her tiny sliver of a body. Her organs all protest and she clenches her teeth. Apple bits coming back up. The pieces wedge in the back of her throat.

Soon, they will resurface. Soon, they will once again feel the air.

Soon.

Sweat has built up on her forehead. She doesn't bother to wipe it off; it would be no use. More would replace it. More would come and take her away, from this world into another where things look different and feel different and sound different and where she sees things and hears things that aren't there.

She wants to stay in this world.

And she does, as her stomach gives a final lurch and she empties the contents of her stomach on the bed. Simon's bed. He'll be mad. Simon says he won't be mad when she gets ill, but he always is a little bit mad when she's sick on his bed.

She should wipe her eyes and her mouth and drink deep to purify her insides. But her stomach lurches again and she knows it won't stop, won't stop, won't... not just yet.

Maybe soon. But for now she must let it out.

Her insides twist and turn and tangle.

Her insides find their way to the outside.

_fin._


	63. The Future is Coming

_**The Future is Coming**_

She can sense it, twisting and forming into something new, something different. Before, it was something else. But now, after what has happened, things have changed. _Because _of what has happened, things have changed.

And now, she's here, feeling it, sensing it, knowing it will soon arrive and that there's nothing that can stop it. It has set roots down and those roots are pummelling hard into the earth, burying themselves where they will never be removed from.

The past is set now, and it speaks of what the future will hold. It is directing them all - every single person in the 'verse - on the path their future will be on. Buried roots sink deeper, further down, forming more and more paths and bumps in the road.

And she knows, feels it in all of her being, that soon, she will learn of what the results of the past will be. The future is coming, and she sees the twists the roots make and where things are headed.

She knows.

_fin._


	64. Pull, Click, Boom!

_**Pull, Click, Boom!**_

The metal was cool and hard in her grip. She trailed the fingers of her other hand slowly over it, feeling the indents and the grooves, the roundness of the barrel, and finally, the trigger. There, her finger perched, waiting. Knowing what to do, how to act.

She had flashes of memories, weapons training, but wasn't sure if the memory was hers or someone else's - or if it were real at all. All she knew was the coolness of the trigger, and the gun's heavy weight. In her grip, it began to warm, to become a part of her, an extension of her self.

Pull. Click. Boom!

Then, the man before her was lying down. When did he get there? When did she? How? And why isn't he getting back up? What has she done? Oh God.

She swallowed. Her heartbeat quickened.

What now?

Is he sleeping? Hurt? Dead? Dead, she is sure. She killed. She murdered. She's just as bad as he was and she should be shot also. Bullet in the brain pan, squish! That's how it should go. That's where she should be.

Going. Leaving behind this ship and her crew. Following the main to the grave. It'd be safer. For all of them. It'd be safer than leaving the weapon cocked and ready to shoot and explode at any moment.

_fin._


	65. Full Circle

_**Full Circle**_

She sees patterns everywhere. There are patterns in the tests they put her through and in the gentle tones of their voices. (She can _hear_ the evil just by listening to the sound of their voices). She sees patterns in the marks left on her wrists from every time they've dragged her from her room to experiment on her.

The patterns are everywhere.

It is when she is in her room that she notices them the most. Being in her room means that she has come full circle. Being in her room means that the tests for the day, hour, minute, are complete and she is due a moment's peace. It also means that the cycle is about to begin again, at any point in time, from the second she returned to the room. Full circle. Unending.

She often wonders why the walls of the room are square and not circular in that sense. Why not follow the metaphor the whole way through? Why not, why not, why not?

The mental abuse, the torment of worrying when next she will be taken, is worse than any physical ailment she's know.

When will they come? What will they do to her? Will her thoughts be her own? She asks herself those questions every day, every time that she awakens and every minute that she has nothing else to wonder about.

She no longer wonders how long it will be until she gets to go home.

_fin._


	66. Ain't Fair

_Mal/River_

_**Ain't Fair**_

Ain't fair what they did to River. But then, the Alliance never did play fair. All they've done that's fair is their fair share - and more - of screwin' people to hell.

River sure as hell didn't deserve what they did to her. No one does. Made like her brain was a ruttin' playground, as Simon would say, and left her broken.

Girl's not right. She's a reader. She knows things. And she's scary good at shootin' folk when the need arises.

they did that to her. They did it to her, just as they killed hundreds of innocent folk 'cause they couldn't stand the idea that someone in the verse may not agree with their ways. 'course, we Browcoats didn't just sit about and let them roll us to our graves.

We fought. We fought for what's right. And they won.

Ain't none of it's fair, but that's the way of the worlds, in general. Nothin' to do, but keep flyin'. If we're still flying, it's enough. It has to be.

_fin._


	67. Can't

_River, OC_

**_Can't_**

Can't think. Can't focus. Can't anything. only thoughts of him. The sad little boy, no meaning, no purpose, no hope. No direction. Identity unknown. Slipping behind shadows. Sad little boy. Lost. But not alone as he thinks. If only he knew.

There are people. People who would give their lives to him if they knew. People who would give up everything they had to save him. But he doesn't know.

He just slips away.

_fin._


	68. Danger Approaching

_**Danger Approaching**_

Eyes wide open. Lips slightly parted. Hands clasped.

_(Two by two.)_

Her heart races. Her mind buzzes. Memories not hers. Visions of what is to come.

_(Hands of blue.)_

Danger approaching. No escape. No hiding. Run, don't hide. They will find those who hide. They always find those who hide.

_(Two by two.)_

Waiting. Getting closer. Feel their thoughts. Empty thoughts. Nothingness. Hidden thoughts.

_(Hands of blue.)_

They're coming.

_fin._


	69. First Lessons

_**First Lessons**_

Tonight, I will have my first lessons at the Academy. I will finally be in a place where they teach me material at an advanced enough level. Perhaps I will know what it is to struggle with my studies. Perhaps I will learn more and more until they can't teach me any more and I will have to teach them.

Tonight, everything I've been hoping for will be mine.

The Alliance will give me knowledge.

The Alliance will make me better.

_fin._


	70. Just a Spark

_Tag to "Out of Gas"._

_**Just a Spark**_

She feels it before there are any physical signs of its existence. Fire. It's just a spark, just a tiny glimmer, but it is there. And she knows, feels how it's growing, expanding.

Slow and graceful movements, but fast growing. Deliberate, but without motive. Soon, it will spread. It will consume. And then it does, and she can feel its hunger.

She looks around her at the crew, at Simon. She closes her eyes.

"Fire," she tells them.

And then, she waits for everything to burn.

_fin._


	71. Paper Thin

_**Paper Thin**_

My words are not working. They're not mine. Not any more. Paper thin and damp. Easily torn and dissolved into ashes. I don't know where they're from, whose they are. Doesn't matter. Not relevant. need them gone, quiet, shut them up!

Heavy on my minds. Can't think. Too many voices. They're not mine.

Make it right. Cut them out. They are where they don't belong. Time for the voices to go home. Time for the words to return to where they came from. Time for them to return to their owners, and to stay there.

Away. Leave my words in peace.

_fin._


	72. Time Waste

_**Time Waste**_

No time to waste, for even now, time is running out, leaving us behind. We are never truly in the moment because the moment is always changing, and it's always left behind us before we can take a proper look. No time for consideration. No time to relax. Not really.

Only time to be, to exist, and nothing more.

They can't see that. They try to fix what isn't broken, make things that should never be. Like me. Time wasted. Mine. Theirs. And still the moments pass on by.

_fin._


	73. Accommodating

_**Accommodating**_

"It lies."

"River?" He looked at her. She grasped a photo in both hands and was studying it intently. Two women and three men smiled from the frame.

"All smiles the wrong way up on the inside. Goes deeper. through the other end. Secrets. Skeletons."

Simon flashed the Mendels an apologetic smile. "It's been a long day," he said as way of explanation. "River needs her sleep."

Mr Mendel nodded sharply; his wife visibly paled and trembled behind him; she quickly excused herself. "That sounds like a good idea," Mr Mendel said. "Perhaps you should leave before your sister says something to put her in a negative light."

Simon frowned, but nodded. "Of course. Thank you for your help,"

"This one time only. If you come back, don't expect us to be quite as accommodating. We're doing this because your parents asked us to, and we owe them a favour; not for you."

"We understand." Simon took the bag Mr Mendel offered him and then guided River outside into the darkness, which was split only by the porch light. Mr Mendel closed the door, and Simon wrapped his free arm around River. "Let's get back to the ship."

Back on Serenity, Simon sifted through the bag's contents. Though not much was there, it had been worth the trip. He hit 'play' on the first capture.

Their parent's faces appeared. Simon swallowed and hit 'pause'. He closed his eyes. Opened them again. Resumed the video. Beside him, River stared at the capture, entranced. Her eyes were liquid, softer.

"You were right," their mother said. She glanced at their father. "We're sorry, Simon. And River, if you're with him? I hope you're together. River, we're so sorry we didn't come for you. We-"

"I don't know how you did it, but you did, son," his father said. "You got your sister out."

"We don't have much time," their mother said.

"They're coming for us. When we found out what's really been going on, they knew. We're probably not going to-"

BANG! BANG!

Simon turned the capture off, and turned, taking River in his arms. Tears rolled down his face, silent, as River sobbed into his shirt.

_fin._


	74. I Care

_**I Care**_

"I care," she says. "I do, Simon. But your sister is fine."

Simon scowls.

"What you're suggesting is crazy. If anyone heard you talking that way..." She fades out, leaving it up to Simon to put two and two together and figure out what she means.

"No," he says, regardless. "None of that matters. If River could hear you now, what would she think? You're not even willing to check up on her. That's all I'm asking of you."

"Simon, you're being ridiculous. Leave it be, okay? Think about your medical career."

"Think about my-" He shuts his mouth, and shakes his head in disbelief. If their own mother won't try and save River, then he's on his own. His father has already shown he's unwilling. Before he can get another word of protest in, his mother speaks up again.

"Now, I'm leaving for work. When I get home, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and we'll forget this conversation ever happened."

He stares at her, doesn't respond.

She keeps her eyes on him a moment longer and then turns and leaves. The door shuts behind her with a click that is all too loud.

Simon heads to the kitchen and sits at the table, head in hands. He lifts his head, closes his eyes briefly and opens them again. "Goodbye, mother," he whispers.

Then, he gets to work. He has a sister to rescue.

_fin._


	75. Time Goes Differently

_**Time Goes Differently**_

Time goes differently. Slow, then fast, then slow again, and then all at once, the world leaps and moves into a new era.

Her life echoes this philosophy. Only, entwined in each jump in time is memories from people not her. Other girls and boys like her, Alliance officers, sometimes Simon or her parents. Sometimes strangers.

They are all a part of her. They all are joined. And she sees and hears all. She experiences what they have known in past and what they know now.

She shouldn't know any of it. She shouldn't know how one Alliance officer who guards her is afraid of her. She shouldn't know he has killed others like her and enjoyed it – the girls before her, that their experiments failed on. But she does know.

She knows that time works in different ways for her. Sometimes not her.

She knows they did this to her. She knows, to them, she is a play thing, a toy. If she breaks, she will be discarded. Onto the next.

But she doesn't break. She prays to break, but she doesn't. Not really.

So, she waits. She waits and endures their tests and waits, because she can feel _her_ coming.

Soon, she will return home.

Soon, she knows, she will find Serenity.

_Fin._


	76. Wax Towers

_**Wax Towers**_

Tiny flickers of light danced above wax towers. River watched the closest one to her, entranced. Light. Oxygen. Flame.

The wax dripped and dried in lines down the side of the tower. Eventually it would burn down to nothing. Evaporate into the fire. Disappear, except for the stub, the end of the tower, too short to be destroyed any further.

Or it could be knocked over and run flames along the walls, licking everything with hot passion.

River smiled. She wet her finger with her tongue, reached forwards and touched her finger and thumb together over the fire, extinguishing it.

_fin._


	77. Flowers

_**Flowers**_

"Somethin' don't smell right," Jayne mutters darkly.

River smirks at him. The mercenary looks confused. He blinks, looking around him for the source of the smell. She giggles.

"What're you so happy for?"

"Flowers," she says, simply, and leaves it up to Jayne to figure out her meaning.

He doesn't. He chooses instead to glare at her, as if that will reveal to him the answers to the questions he hasn't actually asked.

This method doesn't shed any further light on the issue at hand; Jayne scowls. "Gorram ship better not crash," he mutters, and then he leaves.

River grins.

_fin._


End file.
